ALP 11.1%
Incumbent MP
Grace Grace, since 2017. Previously Member for Brisbane Central 2007-2012 and 2015-2017.
Geography
Central Brisbane. The seat covers the Brisbane CBD and the suburbs of Fortitude Valley, New Farm, Newstead, Spring Hill, Herston, Bowen Hills, Windsor and parts of Kelvin Grove, Wilston and Newmarket.
History
The seat of McConnel was created in 2017, but is simply a new name for Brisbane Central, which had existed since 1977. This seat has been won by Labor at all but one election.
The seat was first won in 1977 by Brian Davis. He had previously held the seat of Brisbane from 1969 to 1974, when he lost to the Liberal Party. He held Brisbane Central from 1977 to 1989.
In 1989 Davis was succeeded by Peter Beattie, the former State Secretary of the Queensland ALP. Beattie was appointed as Minister for Health in the Goss government in 1995. In 1996, the Goss government lost power and the National-Liberal coalition took power without an election. Following this change Beattie was elected as leader of the ALP.
Peter Beattie led the ALP into the 1998 election and became Premier at the head of a Labor minority government, which quickly gained a majority following a by-election. He won landslide victories in 2001, 2004 and 2006 before retiring in 2007.
At the following by-election, the seat was won by Labor candidate Grace Grace, former general secretary of the Queensland Council of Unions. Without a Liberal candidate, Grace’s main opposition came from Greens candidate Anne Boccabella, but retained the seat comfortably with a 7.9% margin.
Grace was re-elected in 2009, but Beattie’s 2006 margin of 14.4% collapsed to only 6%.
In 2012, Grace was defeated by LNP candidate Robert Cavallucci, but she won back the seat in 2015. Brisbane Central was renamed ‘McConnel’ at the 2017 election, and Grace has won two further terms in the renamed seat.
- Gavin Jones (One Nation)
- Christien Duffey (Liberal National)
- Grace Grace (Labor)
- Kirsty Sands (Family First)
- Holstein Wong (Greens)
Assessment
McConnel looks safe on a Labor vs LNP basis, but the Greens are not far away from making the top two. If the Greens overtake the LNP, LNP preferences could decide the result. It’s also not implausible, if there is a swing away from Labor and to the LNP, that the race could turn into a Greens vs LNP race, in which case the Greens would likely win easily on Labor preferences.
| Candidate | Party | Votes | % | Swing |
| Grace Grace | Labor | 11,616 | 35.3 | +1.6 |
| Pinky Singh | Liberal National | 10,192 | 31.0 | -5.6 |
| Kirsten Lovejoy | Greens | 9,263 | 28.1 | +1.0 |
| Paul Swan | Legalise Cannabis | 721 | 2.2 | +2.2 |
| Anne Perry | One Nation | 474 | 1.4 | +1.4 |
| Miranda Bertram | Independent | 236 | 0.7 | +0.7 |
| Malcolm Wood | United Australia | 164 | 0.5 | +0.5 |
| Alan Hamilton | Informed Medical Options | 152 | 0.5 | +0.5 |
| John Fair Dobinson | Independent | 93 | 0.3 | -0.8 |
| Informal | 885 | 2.6 |
2020 two-party-preferred result
| Candidate | Party | Votes | % | Swing |
| Grace Grace | Labor | 20,096 | 61.1 | +3.2 |
| Pinky Singh | Liberal National | 12,815 | 38.9 | -3.2 |
Booths in McConnel have been divided into three areas: central, east and west.
Labor won a majority of the two-party-preferred vote in all three areas, ranging from 59% in the east to 66.5% in the centre.
The Greens came third, with a primary vote of 31.8% in the centre and east, and 36% in the west.
| Voter group | GRN prim % | ALP 2PP % | Total votes | % of votes |
| East | 31.8 | 59.0 | 3,739 | 11.4 |
| West | 36.0 | 65.1 | 2,428 | 7.4 |
| Central | 31.8 | 66.5 | 2,221 | 6.7 |
| Pre-poll | 27.4 | 61.9 | 12,494 | 38.0 |
| Other votes | 25.5 | 59.0 | 12,029 | 36.6 |
Election results in McConnel at the 2020 Queensland state election
Toggle between two-party-preferred votes and primary votes for Labor, the Liberal National Party and the Greens.
Greens candidate talking Climate Crisis and billionaires might not be the right fit for a seat like this, 28% Greens the high water mark in 2020, Duffey looks a more realistic pick than either Wong or Grace.
@Mark
I don’t know for sure, but traditionally the City Hall in Brisbane is a statewide prepoll booth and popular with people who work in the city and vote from seats across the greater Brisbane area. Maybe that 19,000 number is the total votes at the prepoll of that booth and it is not specific to the electorate.
I’ve got $28 @$10 saying lnp win
@Gympie – Agreed. I do believe there will be some level of swing to the LNP. The LNP candidate being openly gay will help in a seat which is very socially progressive and has a large proportion of LGBTQ+ people.
But Grace Grace also has a strong support among gay rights organisations and the LGBTQ+ population within McConnel. She has very strong polling in New Farm and Fortitude Valley, the centre of the community.
@ Nether Portal
can you look at what this seat would be on BCC results and Federal?
@Nimalan sure, I’ll have a look and see what it is.
@James
The thing is Duffey isn’t running as the Gay candidate, he’s running against Grace as a do nothing Member.
The Gay Rights battles were won years ago, the issues in Spring Hill/Bowen Hills/New Farm/Valley are property crime and retail collapse, both of which successive Labor regimes either caused or contributed to and haven’t done much to rectify.
On federal results this seat would have voted 60.2% for the Greens against the LNP on TCP, including the Brisbane and Brisbane Central PPVCs but excluding postal votes as there is no way to tell where they come from.
CORRECTION: it was 60.0% Greens vs LNP on federal results. I accidentally forgot to add the Merthyr booth results.
As for the results on the council level it looks like every booth in Central Ward is also in McConnel and vice versa so the same results there:
Primaries:
* Vicki Howard (LNP): 46.7% (–1.7%)
* Wendy Aghdam (Greens): 35.6% (+8.1%)
* Ash Murray (Labor): 17.8% (–6.3%)
TCP:
* Vicki Howard (LNP): 53.0% (–4.8%)
* Wendy Aghdam (Greens): 47.0% (+4.8%)
The LNP did A LOT better on postals and prepolls in Central so I would assume it would be the same in Brisbane and McConnel. On TCP the Greens won every election day booth in Central except New Farm South (which is a Greens booth federally) but the LNP got 68.4% of the TCP on postal declaration votes and 55.4% at the Brisbane City Hall EVC and thus won the seat.